


Forevermore

by Anonymous



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Adult Rin (InuYasha), Angst, Dark, F/M, Forced Relationship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Interspecies Relationship(s), Knotting, Possessive Behavior, Post-Canon, Rape/Non-con Elements, References to Knotting, Youkai
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:20:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28383867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: He knows of her beliefs of him, of herself and of the impossibility of a ‘them’.She thinks of her love for him as a tragedy which has always been doomed from the beginning and he, in turn, has done nothing to quell his growing need of her, had even trampled it down to a point that he had fooled both himself and Rin into believing it wasn’t there.Regardless, Sesshomaru knows Rin willalwayschoosehimand that reassuring knowledge had always been enough to satiate the dangerous beast dwelling within him.But then Rin chooses otherwise.---"Even you cannot deny the instincts to claim what you already deem as yours. You cannot suppress such a primal part of you. When the time comes and should, heaven forbid, her choice not be you, you might find control as something that is no longer in your grasp. What ever will you do in the aftermath of that?"
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome & Rin, Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha, Rin & Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Rin & Sesshoumaru's Mother (InuYasha), Rin/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Sesshoumaru & Sesshoumaru's Mother (InuYasha)
Comments: 104
Kudos: 285
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost: **READ THE TAGS!!!**
> 
> This contains non-con (implied, for now). Please read the tags and if any of those are a trigger for you or are not something you want to read, don’t proceed. 
> 
> I love these two, I really do. But I can’t help taking a darker take on how they could be. 
> 
> This isn’t the first time I’m posting a story of mine but this is a first for this fandom.

* * *

  
“To stay in Edo, Sesshomaru-sama,” Rin tells him, certain and unwavering. “That is what I have chosen.”

The demon Lord does not move, does not react.

Amber eyes continue to stare through the open shoji doors, gazing into the small, private garden that had been planted years ago solely for her pleasure. The two of them are in her chambers, his back to her as they stand too many feet apart in the room that Rin occupies in the Western palace on the occasional days she would leave Inuyasha’s village to stay here for a few, short days.

Sesshomaru does not ask why she has come to such a decision. He already knows why. She had already apologised so profusely in the past about it.

_“I’m so sorry, Sesshomaru-sama.”_

_“I know it’s embarrassing for you, my Lord. Forgive me.”_

_“It must disgust you, I understand. I apologise, Sesshomaru-sama. Please, don’t treat me any differently. Nothing will change between us.”_

He knows. Everyone who knows the two of them knows.

She is a girl -no. A woman. She is a woman now, almost 19 springs old- who had always bared her heart and emotions out in the open like a bleeding wound.

_“I love you with all my heart, Sesshomaru-sama.”_

His response is always the same.

_“It is of no consequence, Rin.”_

Sesshomaru stands by that response, even now. It _was_ and _is_ of no consequence. The things she feels so openly for him never disgusted him, never once embarrassed him.

Rin thinks of her declarations as something far beneath a demon of his stature, yet proclaims it out loud for him anyway because she knows he will still listen. She thinks of her love for him as a tragedy which has always been doomed from the beginning, sees it as something which can never be reciprocated - only left to burn bright and true in lonely silence until it fades into ashes along with her own life when time itself finally decides to whisk her away.

He knows of her beliefs of him, of herself and of the impossibility of a ‘them’. He knows and yet he has done nothing.

“You don’t need to trouble yourself with my well-being anymore, my Lord,” Rin continues, pulling him away from his thoughts. Sesshomaru’s eyes narrow minutely, her words causing an unsettling shift inside him. The reality of this conversation and where it is heading is beginning to dawn on him and something inside stirs - something he had caged long ago as soon as Rin had begun to blossom into her womanhood. “I will leave at dawn tomorrow and this will be my final night here in the West. Please, don’t inconvenience yourself with visiting me at Edo any longer. It is best we-”

“No,” he cuts her off, tone so icy that it would have frozen a foe on the spot had he been in a battlefield. It does not deter her though. She has never been afraid of him.

_…Foolish woman._

“You’ve already done so much for me. I don-”

“I refuse.”

There’s a tick of silence between them. A slight shuffling. And then-

“…Please, my Lord,” Rin whispers to him.

Sesshomaru turns to the sight of her on her knees, the silk of her kimono strewn around her as she bows deeply, forehead touching the floor.

She is begging him.

_Refuse._

“I‘ve tried to convince myself that just being by your side was enough. That just being a ward of the West until my last sunset in this world was enough,” Rin says, voice breathless but the scent of tears absent.

She is a Lady through and through now, he is abruptly reminded, and as much of an open book she can be, Rin had also learned how to contain herself far better than most women of Noble birth when circumstances call for it. Aristocracy does not run in her blood but it had been ingrained in her through other ways. Sesshomaru and even his own mother had seen to that. It didn’t matter that Rin spent her growing years in that human village his Hanyou brother resided in.

She is of the West, always.

_Not just a ward. Not anymore. Fool._

“But you will have to start a family soon, my Lord, and I-” Rin’s throat constricts suddenly, cutting her words short. She takes a deep breath, her delicate form still hunched on the floor in front him. “I wish you all the happiness in the world, I truly do,” she continues with heart-breaking sincerity. “But I’ve realised that I can’t be there to see it, my Lord. It would kill my heart.”

Sesshomaru listens, unblinking as the girl-turned-woman pours her heart out before him. He listens to the words she utters out loud, deciphers the words she does not but still means for him to hear all the same.

A youkai wife and pure-blooded children are what Rin has come to define as his happiness.

_…Ridiculous._

The corner of his lips curls up ever so slightly in a barely-there snarl, one that nobody else but Rin herself would have been able to spot.

His happiness? Dependent on having a youkai wife and pure-blooded children?

_Preposterous._

He smooths down his expression easily, quelling down on the sudden surge of anger and disgust that Rin’s image of his so-called ‘happiness’ had provoked.

_Repulsive. Wrong, wrong, wrong._

These gnashing echoes from the beast dwelling within him is nothing new. Those always accompanied every thought of her in some form or another, even back when Rin had only been as tall as his knees. Those echoes were always there, usually as a whispering subconscious mantra of _protect, protect, protect._

The fairly recent, brutal, possessive undertone in the resounding echoes, however, was something Sesshomaru could not accept.

He doesn’t know when the beast inside had begun to preen every time Rin sent one of her sweet, carefree smiles in his direction, could not pinpoint when the sound of her laughter had begun to stop him in his tracks and make his stare linger a second too long. He knew, however, that when the beast had growled, so low and so angry - _Crush those fools’ heads. Break their necks. Rip out their spines-_ after hearing of Inuyasha’s snide tale of how his Hanyou brother had to shoo away _another_ one of her suitors -a demon this time. A strong, young noble who travelled all the way from the South _-_ that something was very, very wrong.

He had made the mistake of consulting his mother about it not too long ago and as expected, her input on the matter was not the kind he wanted to hear.

_“You have already chosen. And yet you continue to deny her and yourself. Why?”_ she had said. “ _You are the Lord of the West. A most powerful Inu Daiyokai, perhaps the most powerful there will ever be but even you cannot deny the instincts to claim what you already deem as yours. You cannot suppress such a primal part of you,”_ his mother continued, words almost a warning if not for that annoying matter-of-fact, flat tone she almost always used when chiding him. _“Thread lightly while you are still able to, Sesshomaru. You are the one that has always told her it would be her choice. When the time comes and should, heaven forbid, her choice not be you, you might find control as something that is no longer in your grasp. What ever will you do in the aftermath of that, my son?”_

He had not answered his mother then, face as stoic and unreadable as always but Sesshomaru could not hide the scent of the blood seeping between his fingers when his claws dug into his palms hard enough to puncture skin, the stirring beast inside growling in anger at the suggestion of Rin choosing anything but him.

Rin would always choose him, no matter how she would go about it. Sesshomaru had been sure of that. Their lives would always be connected some way or another. She will always be there until her last breath.

‘Forever,’ Rin had promised over and over, after all, hadn’t she?

His mother had turned her chin up at the metallic scent in the air, painted lips pursed in disdain.

_“Cease this foolishness before the consequence of your refusal to take what you already know is yours wraps its claws around both your throats.”_

Sesshomaru remembers narrowing his eyes, swiftly turning and walking away from his mother without another word.

Being pursued by him is not what Rin wants.

Even if he had taken that route and pursued her in the way she deserved, Rin would have irrevocably turned him away in the end, would have never let anything more than a small, short-lived spark blossom between them under the notion that he deserved something better than what she was.

Sesshomaru knows this as the truth.

He knows this because those had been the words he overheard Rin herself utter so brokenly too many moons ago as she confided to his brother’s Miko mate - _and I can live with that, Kagome-chan. As long as we’re in each other’s lives in some way or another, I can live with that. Even if it means just watching him from the side-lines_ \- unaware that Sesshomaru had been stood atop the hut they resided in, well-within hearing range.

She had said back then that she was content simply being what she is now - just a ward of the West. Only a ward of the West.

He resolved to respect her wishes, had set himself in keeping a distance that was far enough to let her know he had no intention of getting closer but still kept her within reach as to not wake the beast inside that growled selfish, troubling demands at him when she was too near.

Rin would always choose to have him in her life in some way or another, Sesshomaru thought, and that reassuring knowledge was always enough to satiate the dangerous predator with ill-intents in him into a near-slumber.

_Foolish._

He wonders if Rin had communicated her heartache to his mother somehow. Perhaps the two had a brief, wistful conversation about it on those occasions both women happen to visit the Western palace at the same time. Maybe words had not been needed and a slip of sadness in Rin’s eyes had been enough to tell his mother everything.

“And what of you?” Sesshomaru asks suddenly, sharply drawing away from the thought of Rin being sad because of him. Such a thought made him too uneasy, made him feel as though he was too close to the razor edges of _not being in control_. “What will become of you in that village?”

Rin finally raises her head, staring up at him for a long, few seconds before sitting up on her heels. A few heartbeats pass and she looks away from him, dark tresses falling down her shoulders like silk.

“I will continue to train under Kaede-baa-sama,” she says, “and live my life in the village as any human should. As you intended me to.” Brown eyes peer back up at him resolutely. “That is the choice I have made, Sesshomaru-sama.” 

Sesshomaru stares back, her wordless echoes of _‘Not you. I have not chosen you_ ’ resounding louder than a scream in both their ears.

The same gnawing at the pit of his stomach is back in an instant, burning hotter than ever and it reaches his chest like a molten fist driving through his ribcage.

Rin wants to leave him, truly, Sesshomaru realises then.

She wants to leave him and she wants to sever all the ties that binds their lives together permanently. That is what she had chosen for the both of them.

_Unacceptable._

The beast inside finally opens its red, red eyes.

_She will not leave._

Sesshomaru clenches his jaws tightly.

“And what do you see that life entailing, Rin?” he asks, voice giving nothing away of the uncontrollable fury beginning to surge through his veins.

The beast within is wide awake now, prowling and baring its fangs in anger at what was happening.

_She cannot leave. Never._

“I don’t know, my Lord,” Rin answers, looking down at her folded hands in her lap, oblivious of the raging storm she had brew in the most powerful demon to have ever breathed. “Peace, I hope.”

_That’s right. Don’t look at me in the eyes. Submit._

“You speak of myself starting a family in your absence,” Sesshomaru says, aware of the sheer want to sink his teeth into the juncture of her neck in an irreversible claim now being at the forefront of his thoughts instead of being hidden away in the dark recesses of his mind. Still, he continues, wanting to know what she could possibly see in this future she speaks of. “Will you choose to have your own in my absence, then?”

Trusting brown eyes glance back up at him.

‘Forever’ is what Rin had always told him - _forever by your side, no matter what, my Lord_ \- and Sesshomaru had never questioned her devotion or her promises, reassured by the way she sealed all of those with her blinding smiles.

_Forever, she kept saying._

When had she come to find his presence so unbearable that she would choose _this?_ Had he looked away from her for too long? Or had she simply become so capable of concealing things from him that she was able to easily hide the inner conflict that must have tormented her before finally coming to this decision?

_Lying wench._

“I… hope to be able to learn to love someone else first before I think about that, my Lord,” Rin tells him honestly.

He imagines it - this same, beautiful Rin with the same, beautiful smile, devoting her time and her love to a stranger. Someone that was not him – and it paralyses the demon Lord, freezes his limbs like a warrior struck down in battle.

Sesshomaru knows right there and then, before Rin could say anything more, that his mother is right and it is too late.

He has done nothing to quell his growing need of her, had even trampled it down to a point that he had fooled both himself and Rin into believing it wasn’t there and now, that primal need for her had morphed into something darker, had twisted into something far more dangerous than it should have been.

The image of her in a faceless man’s embrace burns through his head - a strong Lord from another land, his irrational mind goads him- and brings with it a hot, white rage he has never felt before.

“If… if I could just learn to do that first then…yes,” Rin says.

The beast inside snaps its jaws.

_Unacceptable._

“Perhaps having a family of my own someday isn’t so far-fetched,” Rin confesses quietly.

Sesshomaru sees it so suddenly, so vividly – her stood in a field of flowers, belly rounded with an unborn heir, carrying an offspring not sired by him – and his vision corrodes away at the edges like Bakusaiga itself had been unleashed, leaving only Rin at the centre of his sight.

He snarls low in unison with his beast at that, amber eyes bleeding into red in an overwhelming, uncontainable rage.

_Betrayal._

In a flash, Rin is lying flat on her back, staring up at him in the dark with wide, brown eyes.

“S-Sesshomaru-sama?!”

Maybe in another time, in another life, he could have done things differently and she could have viewed the possibility of them in a different light. Maybe in another reality, he could have reigned the violent possessiveness in his instincts better and give her the sweet, slow-burn of a tender romance she deserved, convinced her in a different way that she would have been enough for him as she was.

But his mother is right and as his claws tear through the fabric of Rin’s kimono the same way her confessions of being able to live a life without him had shredded through his control, Sesshomaru knows it is too late and there is no going back now.

She will not leave him.

He will make sure of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly do adore Sesshomaru and Rin and I do apologise for twisting a story involving these two into such a dark angst (though considering Sesshomaru's nature, this kind of take might not be so far fetched).
> 
> I'll stick without a rating for now but I might do a second part which would definitely bump it up to the Explicit rating. I'm not sure about that second part though. Thoughts, please?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING** : This contains **non-con** and **sensitive material**. Please read the tags and if any of those are a trigger for you or are not something you want to read, don’t proceed. 
> 
> Reading back on the original story, I realised I couldn’t leave it hanging like that (mostly for my benefit because I had too many jumbled ideas running around my head) so here is a short conclusion to the previous chapter.

* * *

  
It is quiet now.

The lanterns in the private garden connecting to her chambers have not been lit tonight and pitch-black darkness surrounds them, the glow of the crescent moon the only thing illuminating the tattered flowers scattering the grass like broken glass.

Under him, Rin trembles.

Blood drips down the nape of her neck from where his fangs are still embedded in her skin, red drops landing on the petal-littered soil where she is currently being pinned down by his larger frame.

Sesshomaru rocks forward with a grunt, chest rumbling in satisfaction when the motion makes Rin involuntarily tighten around his knot.

_Mine._

He relishes the tight heat sheathing him, listening to the twin beats of their hearts until the inferno in his veins simmers down just enough that he is able to release the tight grip his jaw has on the back of her neck.

Sesshomaru licks at the indents his fangs had made until the wound stops bleeding, pressing his lips against the angry mark left behind on her skin - soothing but not at all apologetic about the rough way he had used his teeth to hold her down as though she had been an Inuyoukai like he is.

Beneath him, a tremor runs down Rin’s spine.

_“S-Sesshomaru-sama! Wait!”_

Now that the growling and snarling from the inside has quieted into a content rumbling, the memory of her pleas, the ones he had heard loud and clear but did not listen to, begins to reverberate in his ears and Sesshomaru allows the events that had led them to where they are play back in his mind, idly tracing a clawed finger down her bare back.

_“Please! M-my Lord, please!”_

Rin had pleaded and she had cried, he remembers, and if he had been human, his shoulders and arms would still burn with the red marks from where Rin’s blunt, human nails had dug into his skin, grappling at whatever part of him she could reach – scratching and clawing and trying to push him away.

Her struggles had been of no use, of course.

_“Listen to me, please!”_

There was a small chase somewhere in between, Sesshomaru can vaguely recall, after Rin had managed to scramble out of his grip, bolting away from him in her torn kimono. It was brief, lasting only a few strides but the thrill of the seconds-long hunt had ignited Sesshomaru’s blood all the same and it ended with Rin on her knees, pinned face-down in the middle of this small, isolated garden where they still are.

_“Please, Sesshomaru-sama, don’t-”_

Rin had laid there, surrounded by the torn petals of the flowers she had adored so much, the first drop of her tears mixing with the dirt when he had fucked her onto the ground for the first time - _Take it. Take it, take it. That’s it-_ rough and fast and brutal - _Good. Good bitch. Just like that-_ like the true demon she should have feared him to be from the very beginning.

Sesshomaru continues to trail his fingers down her back, tracing the bruising marks he had left on her hips with a gentleness the demon Lord had only ever reserved for her. Rin whimpers quietly, the softness in his touch seemingly too jarring at this point in time after she had just endured the opposite, selfishly brutal and aggressively dominating end of it only moments ago.

He isn’t done with her though, not yet.

He will never be done with her. Not after this.

_Forever, she said._

The salty scent of fresh tears is in the air again and Sesshomaru presses his face against Rin’s hair, arm travelling around her chest to pull her closer.

“…You will not leave,” he says, the first words he has spoken instead of growled out since this all began. The controlled baritone command in his voice is back, slicing through the air like the sharp blades of his swords. “I will not allow it. Do you understand?”

She must understand, after all this she must, but she doesn’t respond, not immediately.

“Rin.”

Their position obscures her face from his vision but at the sound of her name coming from his lips, she shifts and he feels it as Rin bows her head once in a small, barely noticeable nod.

Of course, Rin will obey.

Rin always does.

_Good bitch._

Sesshomaru trails feather-light kisses along her neck and shoulders, inhaling their combined scent. He continues to hold her tightly, covering her body from the chill of the evening with his own, sure that the shivers racking her form are not just from the night’s breeze.

He separates from her carefully once his knot finally goes down, amber eyes darkening in what could only be described as triumph as he watches the evidence of their forced union and his part in it trickle down her thighs.

_Mine. All mine._

He coaxes her on to her back slowly like she is made of glass, like he hadn’t rutted into her, hadn’t fucked her without restraint only moments ago.

Rin lays beneath him in this small field of ruined flowers, staring at his face with emotions that he as a Daiyokai could never understand.

Sesshomaru cups her cheek, brushing away the mix of dirt and tears marring her soft skin.

_Beautiful, beautiful mate._

Something about that touch and the sight of him like this above her, red eyes melted back into amber and magenta stripes smoothened back down to their calmer lines, must hurt her more, Sesshomaru thinks, because Rin’s expression suddenly crumples.

She turns away from him, brown eyes clenched shut.

If Sesshomaru had been anything less than who he is, if he had even a drop of human blood running in his veins like his Hanyou brother, then perhaps he would have felt some sort of remorse at the sight of Rin like this, felt some sort of guilt for forcefully distorting what they were into something else his instincts demanded they be, all at her expense.

But Sesshomaru is neither a lesser demon nor is he anything close to a human.

And so instead he leans down and, true to his nature, cages her underneath him once more.

He silences her whimpers with his mouth, guides the blunt head of his cock back into her core and fills her once again in one, smooth thrust.

Later, much later when the sky is just about to wake and the morning birds are just about to sing, Rin’s loyal handmaidens who attend to her in her time in the palace - _it is unlike the Lady Rin not to call for us this morning. She said she would as soon as she wakes-_ will look for her.

They will walk casually down the hallways leading to her room – _She wouldn’t leave without seeing us for a final time, would she? -_ pause momentarily outside her doors - _No, of course not. Our Lady’s too kind to leave without a goodbye-_ before finally entering following an unanswered knock.

There in her chambers they will find the two of them.

Their Lady Rin will be curled on her futon with nothing else but their Lord’s mokomoko covering her naked body. Their Lord will be sat by her side, robes opened uncaringly at the chest as he watches their human Lady with a stoic casualness only he would have been capable of at a time like this.

Jaken will barge in after them seconds later, false irritation at Rin’s apparent tardiness - _that silly girl! How in the world can I be awake before her?! She’s the one departing!_ \- ringing loud down the castle’s hall even when those within earshot would have known all the imp demon wanted to do was bid his farewells to the no-longer-so-little girl who had wormed her way into his old heart.

Rin had told those closest to her of her choice to leave him and she intended for him to be the last to know, Sesshomaru will realise.

Cold silence will befall the room and those that had walked in will be frozen in their tracks at the scent of sex and tears and the slightest hint of hours-old blood lingering in the air, will feel a heavy weight in their chests and a twist in their stomachs at the sight of their demon Lord’s undeniable claim at the juncture of their human Lady’s neck.

Rin will already be conscious when all of this happens.

She will be awake, fatigued eyes having been locked with molten amber ones the second she woke to him brushing away a lock of hair obscuring her face.

Rin will bury herself deeper into Sesshomaru’s mokomoko, her dark hair a haloing contrast to its white fur as she curls in on herself even more in a vain attempt to hide from the devastated gazes being sent her way from the doorway.

Jaken will be the first to avert his eyes, letting it fall to his feet when the harrowing reality of what had occurred the previous evening begins to sink in. Her handmaidens will do nothing but step aside in docile silence as their Lord carries their human Lady out of her chambers and into his own where a private onsen is, bowing low to his command for them to leave their Lady food, water and a new set of clothes outside his doors.

That is what will greet the world in the morning.

Right now, however, the night is still young.

Right now, the darkness still has hours left to linger before it gives way to the first ray of light and Sesshomaru is not done, not when the juncture of Rin’s neck is still bare of his mark and his blood is alight with the need to stake his claim over and over again.

Right now, the crescent moon still hangs high in the pitch-black sky - the sole witness to the Great Demon Lord of the West’s most unforgivable sin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all very much for the feedback from the previous chapter. Honestly, I wasn't expecting very much from this fic but I was pleasantly surprised by your reactions!
> 
> It could have come out way more explicit but I actually had no idea where I was going with this so I just kind of rolled with whatever came out. 
> 
> I hope this satisfies some of the curiosities from the previous chapter. Thanks for reading! Feedback would be greatly appreciated <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING** : This contains **non-con** and **sensitive material.** Please read the tags and if any of those are a trigger for you or are not something you want to read, don’t proceed.

* * *

  
She’s dreamt of a ‘ _them_ ’, of course she had.

It wasn’t a difficult thing to conjure up daydreams of a ‘ _them_ ’.

Her fantasies came without prompt, in fact, and a lot of her days during the middle of her adolescent years were spent staring at nothing in particular while she went around the village doing her chores, mind half-immersed in a vision of being held tightly in her Lord’s strong arms.

Rin couldn’t help it, especially since she had grown up surrounded by such resilient and happy - albeit a little unorthodox, at times - marriages like the ones Inuyasha and Kagome or Miroku and Sango had.

Of course, she’s dreamt of a ‘ _them_ ’. How could she not?

Shameful as Rin felt for thinking of her Lord in such a manner, there was no denying the fact that she _had_ spent countless hours envisioning a different reality in her mind - one where the two of them would be resting under the canopy of the forest trees beneath the stars, his forehead resting on hers and the warmth of his body merging with her own. She _had_ dreamed of the two of them wrapped in each other’s arms, _had_ imagined how a private ‘ _I love you_ ’ could be exchanged between their breaths – softly whispered from her lips, she imagined, and unspoken from his but still evidently clear in his golden eyes.

In Rin’s old pipedreams, everything would be quiet and perfect and beautiful.

‘ _Stop daydreaming so much, kiddo,’_ Inuyasha had scolded her once with a light flick to her ear. ‘ _You’ll get so lost inside your head you might actually end up falling down a cliff.’_

At the time, it had been a harmless muse on her end.

Dreaming was a very different thing from hoping, Rin thought. Never once did she dare to hope.

She’d always known her Lord Sesshomaru couldn’t hold her that way.

In the lonely silence between his visits and in the sadness in his presence was where Rin came to realise that choosing a final ‘goodbye’ had been an inevitable thing for the two of them all along.

It was during a sunset a few moons after her seventeenth birthday, she remembers, when a glimpse of the ground-shattering heartache accompanying her still-unspoken choice had knocked her breath away for the first time.

The setting sun had hung low on the horizon, the blue of the sky morphing into the beautiful colours of twilight and her Lord had been waiting for her in an open field not too far from the village.

His back had been turned to her, the perfect picture of ethereality and Rin had stopped several feet away. She had watched, entranced as silver strands blew with the gentle breeze, the bright smile on her lips suddenly wavering at the mesmerising sight of him under the setting sun.

He had been beautiful - _always was, always will be_ \- and though he must have heard her running towards him from a mile away, he did not turn, not until she had called out to him. Amber eyes had regarded her with something as close to warmth as Sesshomaru’s eyes could ever reflect and her heart had soared and thumped, shamefully so, with all the love she had to give to him only to falter and stutter in the same beat when he did not make a move to come closer, the ever-present distance between them - _always an arms-length away. Always_ \- serving to remind her of the love that he couldn’t return.

They could never be, Rin had always known that.

But finally choosing to permanently part ways with him?

Back then, seventeen springs old and standing in that open field under the setting sun, _that_ had still been a completely new, utterly petrifying thought.

It had punched the breath right out of her chest.

 _‘Any child of his will definitely look like him, Kagome-chan,’_ she remembers telling Kagome in one of their casual chats around the small fire in Kaede’s hut the evening before that particular visit. _‘Pale skin, golden eyes and silver hair. Maybe with his markings too – both the moon and the stripes, I think. They’d be so beautiful.’_

Kagome had nudged her shoulders with a sly grin. ‘ _Plus, some cute doggy ears at the top of their cute little heads because of their human Mama?’_

 _‘…Of course not, Kagome-chan,’_ Rin had replied after a tick of silence, a sad, wistful smile on her lips. ‘ _They’d have pointed ears like a true inuyokai,’_ she said, knowing from the sudden confusion in Kagome’s face that it was time to voice out what had been truly tormenting her heart. _‘Their Hahaue couldn’t possibly be anything less than their Chichiue.’_

No more illusions of sleeping under the stars with the warmth of her Lord’s mokomoko protecting her from the evening breeze, Rin had told herself. No more fantasies of his soft lips on her forehead or the light scrapes of gentle claws on her skin, she had promised to the heavens, and certainly no more daydreams of beautiful Hanyou children with his eyes and her smile.

Seventeen springs old and Rin vowed with a heavy heart that she would learn to let him go.

She is almost nineteen springs old now.

Almost nineteen and instead, she finds herself on the soft, white fur of her Lord’s mokomoko.

His claws are indeed gentle where they rest on her skin and his lips truly do feel soft and warm as they press against the centre of her forehead in a kiss that is meant to sooth her tremors away.

They are back inside her chambers now, no longer laying on the grass and no longer exposed to the cold outdoors. The chill of the evening is absent inside her room and Rin isn’t cold, not anymore - quite the opposite in fact.

The heat emitting from their bodies is more than enough to provide ample warmth and the fur she rests on ensures she is wholly protected from any cold which could creep into the corners of her chambers.

No, Rin isn’t cold by any means.

Still, she couldn’t stop shaking.

The side of her neck is still throbbing, the tear tracks on her cheeks still in the midst of drying.

There is an overflow of liquid warmth between her inner thighs, uncomfortable and so foreign, and Sesshomaru is still inside her. He is moving once more, the slow drag of his length inside her making her tremble harder than she already had been.

They’ve already spent the majority of the evening in this position but the overwhelming sensation of being so intimately joined with him still makes her want to cry all over again. 

_“I love you with all my heart, Sesshomaru-sama.”_

Rin wants to curl into a ball and hide away, to simply disappear as the memories of her long-buried daydreams resurfaces with everything he is doing.

Sesshomaru presses their lips together, holds her close - _So close. Too close. He’s never been this close-_ like it was something he had always done and Rin finds herself clinging to him despite it all, not knowing what else there is to hold onto in this world in the midst of what she is enduring - what he is putting her through.

Sesshomaru pulls back just enough to stare at her face and the sight of him makes her heart jolt, makes her chest constrict painfully when she sees the dark possessiveness and animalistic hunger prowling in the same golden eyes - _usually so impassive and cold. Only ever warm just for her_ \- she had spent too much time getting lost in.

Are those the only things that he, as a Daiyokai, could feel for her?

Rin clings to her Lord harder, pressing her face against his shoulder so she doesn’t have to look at the answer in his eyes.

She pleads desperately to whatever Gods are up in the heavens for this to end, for all of this to be a horrendous nightmare, begging with all her might for someone to wake her so she can return to a safer reality where the only thing she had ever needed was his presence to make all the fear and all the pain go away.

_“I love you with all my heart, Sesshomaru-sama.”_

There is that tell-tale rumbling from Sesshomaru’s chest again- _this is no nightmare-_ too real and too terrifying – _this is their reality now_ \- and Rin bites her lip so hard it bleeds at the growl resonating in the dark, failing to contain her broken gasps when the pace of his thrusts - _too much, too much. No more_ \- begins to increase once more.

There is no whispered ‘I love you’ under the canopy of the forest trees beneath the stars. Nothing is quiet or perfect or beautiful and the only thing reflecting from her beloved Lord’s golden eyes are the dark needs of a Daiyokai reaping the promises she had made.

_“I love you with all my heart, Sesshomaru-sama.”_

So simple and so naïve, her old, faded daydreams were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd have posted this as a separate part but I want to keep everything to do with this story in one place so this fic has just become a small drabble for me to dump my plot bunnies in at this point, I think.
> 
> Ya'll, this was only meant to be a oneshot.
> 
> Not sure how much I'll add but the requests from the previous chapter for Rin's POV caught my attention. Rin's POV was indeed very interesting (and oh so challenging *_* ) to write. 
> 
> Thank you all so so much for the support and feedback from the last chapter!! I LOVE READING ALL YOUR INSIGHTS (both about the characters and the fic itself)!!!


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